Brian's lips are stained, bruised. He's drunk, in his old living room in Birmingham. He knows that everyone knows, but that no-one will say anything. He knows he'll get punished for it in the morning, but that nothing will ever be discussed. He wonders what it would take to get him thrown out of this house, and has a sudden urge to push that limit.

"I kissed him," He wants to say, he wants to roll over and slur it to his father, who's watching television like a rigid corpse.

"I kissed him, I kissed him, I kissed him in my room and in your house. Everything you've thought has been true."

Brian laughs, and feels his mother's eyes turn to him from the couch, cold and disapproving. He wants to push everything, suddenly, to break all of it. To crush every eggshell he's ever walked on, and get himself thrown out, or maybe even make them mad enough to kill him. It's a feeling he'll become more and more addicted to, until one day, his only fascination will be destroying himself.

But right now, it's new. It counteracts the rising shame in his stomach, making him feel powerful and sick.

"We did more than kiss," He mouths softly, "We did more than you think."

Neither of them look at him, but he imagines that their silhouettes become stiffer. He imagines they heard him.

Another giggle bubbles out of his chest, rising over the white blare.

"Go upstairs, Thomas," His father says, low and furious, "Go to your room."

He stays in his seat, discombobulated, not sure he can get up.

His father turns to him,

"None of us want to look at you. Go up."

Brian is on his feet, swaying, still laughing. He's so much angrier than either of them, he believes. They have no idea what it means to be angry.

The sick feeling is stronger than ever before, and he pauses at the foot of the stairs, only to vomit all over the floor.

He turns to them and smiles, overcome with pleasure.

Brian crushes his cigarette under the toe of his shoe, overcome with the same sick feeling that he'd had then. He feels like he's sixteen again, making mistakes that he won't ever fix. He's standing on the bridge, staring at his white skull's reflection on the black water. Every few minutes he'll glance at his watch, the time Curt is supposed to meet him ticking ever closer. If he's been wrong about this whole thing, if he's been wrong about trusting him, it's over. He'll never be able to hide again.

You get what you want, and you do what you will.

Last night had been such a blur of thoughts and feelings, it barely feels real. Curt standing in his office, seeming so out of place: Black and blue against the floral print. Telling him things he didn't know and didn't want to hear. Curt had missed him. Brian had returned that feeling, and had told him as much, though every fiber of his being had told him to make him leave. Send him back to his own little world, back to Jack and Malcolm. Brian supposed it was almost romantic, him appearing on opening night and ending up in his office. Perhaps it proved that love was still alive in this cold, modern decade- the way his heart had jumped and crashed in his chest when Curt spoke, the way blushing and smiling came so easily to him. They were as ridiculous as he'd remembered them being, always darting around the real problem, around their real feelings.

He's beautiful, Brian thinks, lighting another cigarette, he's very beautiful. He's beautiful because he's like nothing else I've ever loved.

He shouldn't have given him a written copy of his address. He didn't trust Jack or Malcolm, and he certainly didn't trust Curt to keep it away from them. He'd leave it in his coat pocket, or in his nightstand, and then what?

Anxiety slithers up Brian's spine, but he's already been in the thick of it so long it barely registers.

Denied hunger nauseates him- he cannot eat, not today.

The past two shows, which had been at ten and two respectively, had blown by him in a wave of confusion and exhaustion. No show was ever as exciting as opening night, but these had seemed especially trite: Brian supposed that was what happened when your personal life became more intriguing than your fictional works. He'd always tried to keep it so that wasn't the case- maybe he'd put a terrorist attack or a mass poisoning in his next play, just to keep it even.

What will I do when he leaves again?

The thought comes to him suddenly, fretfully: the dark energy buzzing in his brain tells him that Brian could ask him to stay, that he could make him stay forever. No, he couldn't. They'd tried that back when it was plausible, when they were young and stupid and energetic enough to make it work.

There are other things to worry about now, such as the funeral he had to attend next week. Such as returning home to Birmingham and seeing his family, such as answering the endless passive-aggressive questions from his mother. There were things such as grieving for his father, whom he'd never really known beyond a dark face in the hallway that he had to avoid.

Only a half an hour until seven. He has enough time to get to the liquor store and vacuum before Curt arrives, if he's coming after all.

By ten o' clock he's thoroughly pissed, and Curt is over three hours late. The bottle of cheap wine- yes, he'd bought wine- dangles listlessly from his fingers, clinking occasionally against the floor.

He feels nauseous, stupid, and completely humiliated. He should've known Curt would never show, that such an important and brilliant talent would have better things to do. Maybe Malcolm and Jack had deterred him somehow, maybe Jack had talked him out of it. He always had such a hold on Curt, or at least that's how it had seemed to him.

Or maybe he'd done the smart thing, the mature thing, and realized it was a terrible idea. Tears prickle in the corners of his eyes, making his embarrassment even worse. Now he's crying over it.

Then comes the knock on his door, quiet and apologetic.

"…Brian?"

His mouth twists into a sneer. Maybe he won't say anything, just let him stand out there all night, or until he has somewhere to be.

"Listen, I would've called but I didn't have your number," Brian rolls his eyes and sets the bottle down,

"Jack found out, okay? But don't worry, he's not going to do anything about it. He just- really didn't want me to come here."

He closes his eyes, fisting a hand in his hair in an attempt to control his irritation.

"Please. I really fucked up, I know, I just couldn't get away. Malcolm got really suspicious-"

He pauses as another set of footsteps passes him in the hallway: someone on their way home.

"And I didn't know what to do, because Jack was just making him upset by not telling him what was up, and then they started fighting- it doesn't really matter. Please let me in."

Brian heaves himself to his feet, thinking nothing, feeling nothing. A hard knot has settled in his chest, and he feels his face beginning to burn.

He yanks open the door, causing Curt to stumble backwards into the corridor.

It's dim, freezing cold. One of the lights is flickering, casting odd shadows across his pale face, making the whole scene even sadder. Curt looks very small, very unsure- in that moment his eyes seem impossibly dark, and blue. He's still wearing the same jacket, and the same pin- a bit dulled with age, but still the same. People must have given him hell for wearing Brian Slade's pin, they must have bullied him for years.

"I'm sorry, Brian," He says, "I didn't want to do that to you."

"I've been waiting for three hours."

"I know- I know."

"I set this up so you could talk to me. This was for you."

Curt's mouth is red from the cold, as are his cheeks and nose. He looks away, towards the flickering light: his hair turns silver and gold, silver and gold.

"I'm sorry."

Brian stares at him, unrelenting.

"Come in if you're coming in. I've drunk most of the wine."

He ducks back into the warmth of his flat, throwing himself back into his chair by the window.

Curt stands in the doorway, his hand on the knob, the chill of the corridor slipping in past his boots.

He picks at his zipper, shame apparent in every line of his body.

"Close the door, please."

He does so, and looks up at Brian again: In the warm light of the living room, he seems younger, smaller. He kicks out his legs and crosses them, smiling up at him maliciously.

"Sit down, preferably somewhere close, so we can hear each other well."

Without a word, he sits on the loveseat across from him, a defensive, bitter look beginning to settle on his face. They're about to have a screaming match- lovely. The silence is coarse, and he refuses to break it, instead needling his eyes into Curt's until he looks away.

"I don't want to do this while you're pissed off and wasted."

"Why not? We've done it that way plenty of times before. If you didn't want it to be like this you should've been on time, instead of making me wait around for you like an idiot."

Brian's voice echoes off the walls: If anyone from next door complains, he'll kill them.

"Well that's really fucking fair, isn't it?" Curt's voice is rising now too, bringing him right back to the old days,

"Nobody made you wait, nobody made you invite me, nobody made you do anything you didn't want to do."

He's leaning in slightly, his eyes glowing, unfocused. Brian wonders suddenly if he's high, or drunk, or both.

"I'm not blaming you for anything, I'm sure Jack can be very persuasive."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Don't act stupid, Curt, I know where you went and what you did when you abandoned me the first time."

Brian realizes he's breathing very hard and fast, and that it feels like something is winding itself tightly around his lungs. Curt's expression switches from hurt, to angry, to confused.

"I didn't abandon you for anything," He says slowly, and Brian decides that he's definitely stoned,

"You were getting rid of me."

It's so hard to inhale, it's so hard to remember to breathe.

Curt's voice had softened momentarily, but it's rising again, and he's leaning in closer and closer as though he might punch him.

"I tried to come back, I kept trying to come back- you got rid of me, you let Jerry throw me off the label- and then you fucking died on me, and then you weren't dead, and then you ran off- What the fuck was I supposed to do?"

"I don't know," There's something blocking up his throat, so his voice is only a whisper,

"I don't know."

"You know the real reason I went to Berlin, Brian?" Curt has never spoken so softly, or looked so menacing, "You know why I went?"

He doesn't answer.

"It wasn't so I could fuck Jack-I went because at the time, and I'm sure you remember what things were like in '74, I could get heroin there for nothing and I knew I could get enough to kill myself. Y'know, I hadn't done that shit since I met you, but I really didn't feel like staying alive after you dropped me on my ass because I wasn't good enough for you."

His eyes are glittering, a flat, dangerous blue. Brian can feel the tears streaming down his face, can hear his own pathetic sobs ripping themselves from his throat. Curt looks pale and drawn, lost, and with a sick sense of falling off the Earth he wonders if this is the last time they'll ever see each other.

"That is not- that is not true," He stutters, thick and almost unintelligible,

"That was not what was wrong that is not what I said-"

"So what did you say, exactly?" Curt's screaming again, and he's on his feet, pacing back and forth,

"What did you mean when you told me I was a bad investment? What did you mean when you started talking about me like I was just a commodity? When you told me I was out of a job, and that maybe I should consider getting a room somewhere else?"

"What are you pretending, Curt?" Brian tries to shout, but it's weak and floundering,

"It was all falling away from us. It was horrible. For God's sake, we were children- and we were losing it, everyone was losing it. I didn't know what to do. I tried to talk to him about keeping you on but you were unmanageable," He wipes his nose on the back of his hand, "And there was nothing I could do."

Curt has stopped pacing, standing dumb in the middle of the floor.

"Then you left, and I didn't know where you were-"

"If you'd given a shit-"

"I asked all around," He sits up straighter in his chair, forcing their eyes to meet, "I asked everyone where you were and not even the junkies could tell me. The next thing I heard you were in a different country, with Jack, making a record and I had nothing left. I had no one."

Brian imagines that Curt's lip is trembling slightly, but it's too dim in the room to tell. He's turned partially away from him, eyes halfway to the door.

"I saw you at the show," He says, and all the heat and anger is sucked out of the room in an instant,

"But you didn't come up to me."

"I was in the process of coming here. I went to the airport that night."

He looks back at him, and his gaze is hard, tears spilling down his cheeks.

"That's it, then. I think we've talked."

He crosses to the door, his blonde hair whipping out behind him. Brian stumbles to his feet, feeling blank and numb.

He manages to grab his arm, and he clutches it as tightly as he can. Curt is almost hyperventilating.

"Where are you going? Why are you going?"

"It hurts too much, I don't want to be here anymore."

Brian's hand fists around his arm, and he looks back at him, unsure.

"Don't go," He presses him to the door, trying to hold him in place,

"Don't go."

Curt stares at him incredulously, and so he kisses him.